Still Growing: The Not So Mini Series
by hostilecrayon
Summary: Sequel to Growing Up and part of the Growing Arc. Growing takes time, and no one said it was easy. 1 equals 2
1. Be Careful What You Wish For

**Still Growing: The Not-So-Mini-Series**

Title: Be Careful What You Wish For  
Author: hostilecrayon  
Paring: 1=2  
Rating: R (Language)  
Warnings: Angst, Dark Humor  
Word Count: 7075  
Disclaimer: Still poor. Gundam Wing is owned by Hajime Yatate and Yoshiyuki Tomino.  
Notes: This is the first installment in the sequel to the Growing Up Mini-Series. *Glares at the plot bunny* You do not have to read the first in the series to understand what's going on, but it helps. This is dedicated to Merith, since she was the one who pushed me so hard for a sequel to what was supposed to be just a little 500 word one-shot. Also, for Sunhawk, whose Ion Arc continues to inspire me even after all these years. The Spacer/Ground-Bounder terms were borrowed from her fic. I'm not sure if they are her terms or not, as I've seen them in other fics as well, but since Ion uses these terms quite a lot, I give the credit to Sunhawk. Thanks to aki_midori for all her beta work and soul melting praise! Poke her with a stick and demand she write some GW fics! Her writing is amazing.

**Be Careful What You Wish For**

The last six months have been… surprisingly uninteresting. I had firmly decided against Heero and I moving in together so soon. Though things were a little more stable, we'd only started to work through our issues, and after a lot of talking and a little mediation from Quatre, Heero had grudgingly agreed. That was why Thursday night found me sitting by myself in my tiny studio thinking about the progress we'd made. Or, as I had started to realize, our lack thereof.

Routines can be a bitch, you know that? Somewhere along the way, we'd fallen into one that didn't seem to change all that much. Heero was waiting for me to make the next move. I knew that, of course, but it didn't make me any less exasperated over the whole damn situation.

I went over the routine in my head a little, toying with ways I could change it without having to do too much talking because quite honestly, I'm sick of it. Talking, that is. It seems to me that Heero and I have been doing nothing _but _talking ever since we finally took the step to get things moving forward. The problem was, it was the _only _thing we'd done to move things forward. After things started to be a little less stressful and the edge started to wear off, Heero was more than ready to try to drag out everything I've thought and felt over the last two years.

It didn't take long for me to become less than cooperative. I mean, how would you feel if every time you saw your significant other he wanted to talk about things that made you want to run screaming from the room? That didn't seem to deter him, though. Far from it. He can be a damn stubborn, insistent bastard when it comes right down to it.

Yeah, it was Thursday, and Thursday was Phone Call at Eight night. Friday was Spend Time with the Pilots day, Saturday was Spend the Night at Heero's, and Sunday was Day Date day with Optional Spend the Night at Duo's. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were Take Some Space days, and I'm more than a little ashamed to say I'd started really looking forward to those nights of peace.

You have to understand, I'm a man of variety. I like to spice things up a little, and though I don't have a problem with a little stability, these ridged lines were starting to get to me – in a crazed, frayed edges sort of way. Heero seemed to take it all as just a side effect of all of the things we needed to work out, but for all the talking we'd been doing, I'd be hard pressed to give you any news of things getting better.

The phone rang and I sighed.

Yep, definitely not better. I'd even go so far as to say things were getting worse. Not that I'd tell Heero that.

"Hello," I called out across the line as cheerfully as I could muster.

His voice was predictably warm, and as much as I loved hearing it, monotony kind of killed the effect for me. "Hello yourself, gorgeous."

You know, after six months, you'd think I'd be used to his playful flirting. I wasn't.

"How was your day?"

"It was alright." His voice was a little tired then, and though his new attitude still caught me off-guard, the tone of his voice didn't.

"You didn't have to shoot anyone today, did you?" I chided gently, going for playful and only managing a bastardized breed of amused and… was that bitterness? It certainly tasted like it.

I never did get over him being an active field Preventor. Especially after the comment about not worrying about leaving anyone behind. It probably wasn't fair of me to want him to up and quit his job, but I kind of thought that maybe he'd at least put in for a desk job.

He hesitated, and I knew I wasn't going to like the answer he gave me. "Not today," he said at length, trying to match my weird attempt at humor and failing just as badly, "but I'm going to be shipped out on assignment on Saturday."

I sighed heavily. This was the only break in our routine – his field assignments. Most of them could be done during 'office hours', but if he was being shipped out on a Saturday, then it wasn't your ordinary field job, and hours turned into days and sometimes threatened weeks. A myriad of things flitted across my mind, but I tossed them all out, finally settling on "How long?"

He was quiet for a time, and I realized I _really_ wasn't going to like the answer I got. The silence when on so long that for a minute, I'd thought we'd gotten cut off, and I prompted him with a questioning, "Heero?"

"Too long." Well, shit. That spoke of the weeks variety, and I know I said I wanted some of that, but not this particular breed of it. I scrubbed a hand across my face and silently cursed the gods who were definitely laughing at me somewhere. I could just see a higher power laughingly telling me 'you asked'.

"Fuck," was my eloquent reply.

"Indeed." And the line went silent again. So much for pleasant conversation.

The conversation proceeded pretty haltingly after that, and it ended even more awkwardly. I know he wanted me to try and understand. He was doing his part to keep the world a safer place. I just wished he was a little more concerned with his own safety instead.

Insecurity started nipping at my heels and I knew it was going to be a long fucking night.

I know Heero loves me. Really, I do. But it's the little things that make me unable to really grasp that concept sometimes. Things like him throwing himself in the line of fire for weeks on end and leaving me behind to stew with that knowledge. Okay, maybe the not-so-little things.

I spent a good portion of that night thinking about the status of our relationship and wondering just when in the hell it had gone critical without me even noticing.

It was thoughts like that that left me completely weary and totally unprepared for what happened on that otherwise lovely morning.

My alarm had just started buzzing, reminding me unrelentingly that yes, I did have a day job and that it was in fact time for me to join the world of the living rested or not when a sharp rapping made itself known at my door.

"I'm coming," I groused, hitting my alarm with a little more force than was necessary and pulling on my faded blue rubber ducky pajamas.

Yes, I wear pajamas with a rubber ducky design on them. Go ahead, laugh it up.

I opened the door with as much flair as I could muster with my braid half undone, shirtless and with bags under my eyes.

"Duo Maxwell?" The man asked in a gruff, unfriendly voice, and I gave his uniform and badge an appraising glance before I answered.

"That's me," I was trying to say to Tom Palamino – that was the name on his badge – but it came out as more of a yawn than a sentence. I frowned a little when he pulled something out of his pocket. "Can I help you?"

That was when I noticed his partner in the background looking like he was going to pounce on me if I made any sudden movements. Definitely not the best thing to wake up to.

"I have a warrant for your arrest. If you'll just come quietly…"

I gaped at him. I ran over the last few days in as much detail as I could with my serious lack of sleep and an even bigger lack of sufficient time to wake up. I didn't come up with anything remotely illegal. Hell, I don't even think I'd been speeding. So when I opened my mouth again, it was genuine confusion laced in my words. "I think there must be some mistake, officer. I haven't done anything…"

Two things happened then. The first cop shoved the warrant in my face and the second – a Jerry Steward – moved to grab my arm. Both movements just served to drudge up that 'kill or be killed' instinct in me, and I am very proud to say that the scuffle was short and everyone came out of it mostly intact. I grabbed the man who had reached for me with my left hand and twisted – hard – and the larger man's eyes widened with shock and he cried out in pain. Tom started, and I took the opportunity to snatch the white and yellow carbon paper from his hand and effectively shove him back. He looked torn between trying to assault me and seeing to his partner who was currently holding his wrist and cursing a mean streak. He went with the latter.

Smart man.

As the two men examined the now swelling wrist and tried to decide if it was fractured or not, I scanned the document. When I got to the charges portion of the thing – it's hard to find buried in all the legalese – I couldn't help myself. I laughed. It came out just a little too unstable, since both men just stopped and stared at me, half afraid, I think, that I would start attacking them again. But then they seemed to realize that they had a job to do and the uninjured officer took out his cuffs and practically growled at me in warning. "Mr. Maxwell, you _will _come down to the station."

I sighed in irritation and let the man slap the damn cuffs on me without any more of a fuss. Mrs. Palmer, the sweet old lady in the apartment next to me, was peeking out of her doorframe with wide eyes. "Duo? Are you okay? What's going on?"

I tried to smile in spite of it all. Mrs. Palmer had been nothing but nice, and the brief conversations I'd shared with her over the past several months really gave me a sense of normalcy that I hadn't seen a whole heck of a lot of back then. It had helped more than I would have ever admitted in the beginning before me and Heero had started talking again. "Just a little mix-up. I'll get it all cleared up at the precinct, don't you worry."

She looked slightly relieved by my futile attempt to comfort her, but I could still see the worry wrinkles around her eyes.

I don't know if you've ever been hauled out of your home in nothing but pajama bottoms, but it's a damned humiliating thing to experience. Several of my less well-known neighbors came to watch the spectacle, and I darkly amused myself with what they would think when they read tomorrow's paper. 'Local Mechanic Arrested for Setting Fire to an Entire Block'.

Did I forget to mention that when I'd set the house I'd shared with Heero on fire, I'd accidently sent the whole neighborhood up in flames? Whoops is an understatement.

Does it tell you how fucked up I really am that I had to try really really hard not to bust out with a cheery rendition of '_the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire_'?

I settled on just letting it play in my head as Tom ducked my frame and pushed me into the back of the cop car as if I was a feral tiger that could rip their throats out at any moment. I could have, but I wasn't going to. It was my own damn fault, after all.

'_We don't need no water, let the mother fucker burn. Burn mother fucker, burn._'

And that's exactly what I had done. It had caught the vast expanse of fields behind our house on fire, and it had spread so damn rapidly that there wasn't much I could have done other than run through the neighborhood screaming 'fire!' like some lunatic. I made damn sure that everyone made it out of there alive. They did, but by the time the fire trucks had made it all the way out to the boonies, there wasn't much left of their houses to save.

It certainly wasn't one of my higher points.

Then I thought about Mac and let out a stream of muttered curses.

Mac was my boss. He was a stern old man with a carefully hidden soft side, and he'd really taken a shine to me. I was his best mechanic and he needed me. It was going to be a damned difficult phone call whenever I got around to being able to make it.

Yeah, I'm a mechanic. What else did you expect a Ground-Bounder like me to be doing? There was a time when I'd entertained the idea of going into the salvage business – Howard always told me I was born to be a Spacer – but then I'd settled down with Heero and the last thing I wanted to do was ask him to roam the freaking universe with me. Hell, he probably would have if I'd pushed the issue, but I knew it wasn't what he wanted. And then after the break-up, I just couldn't seem to put too much distance between us, and out between the stars is about as much distance as one can get from Earth. So I became a mechanic, and a damned good one, too. If I could work on a Gundam, I could pretty much work on just about anything you threw at me. I'd gotten Mac a whole hell of a lot of business that he would have otherwise had to turn away, and I sort of felt like a son that was about to really disappoint his father.

Hey, it might be ridiculous to think of my boss like a father, but I'm sorely lacking in that particular area, and it was good enough for me.

Once my mind had made me feel guilty enough about Mac and the other mechanics that would have to deal with one of Mac's 'Bad Days' once he got the call, my thoughts turned to Heero.

He was going to fucking _kill _me.

He knows I burned down our old house. Wufei told him, the bastard. I love the guy, but sometimes he doesn't know how to leave well enough alone. Luckily, or I guess unluckily given the current circumstances, I'd carefully omitted the fact that the whole neighborhood joined in my little display of pyrotechnics. Only I and the unfortunate people who'd lost their homes knew what had happened, and none of them knew I'd done it _on purpose_. We lived in a little community that, though situated in the middle of nowhere, was fairly well-off, and they all had fire insurance. It doesn't really make things better, but I like to pretend they all bought houses and accessories that were ten times what they'd had before. Everyone lies about what they actually had once it's too charred to recognize.

Well, except for me. I didn't even file with the insurance company. I'm not _that _fucked up.

Yep, only those poor, unsuspecting victims knew what happened… and apparently, the 23rd precinct had been let in on the secret.

I tortured myself more in that vein until we arrived.

They moved me in to book me, but I was met with a rather nasty surprise when I was met by none other than Chang Wufei himself.

"What the hell?" I started, but a warning glance from Wufei told me to shut my mouth.

He flashed his Preventor's badge and the two officers looked at him with barely contained distain. The little guys really hate it when the higher ups broadcasted just how much authority the precinct didn't have.

"I am Agent Change Wufei," he said unnecessarily, as the officers had carefully examined the badge when he'd provided it, hoping it was a fake. "Evidence has surfaced that this was an assassination attempt. That makes this a federal matter. I'm going to have to intercept the prisoner."

I was completely floored. Assassination attempt? I stood there slack-jawed for a second before I gritted my teeth, trying to figure out just what the hell was going on here. Wufei's face conveyed nothing, and though we'd saved each others' asses more than a few times, I knew Wufei's sense of justice wouldn't let him just blatantly ignore charges of this nature, even if he knew it wasn't true. Outside of the war, he was a man who liked to go through the proper channels, so I knew he wasn't here to rescue me. The gears were grinding in my head so damned hard I think one of them might have broke.

Then it dawned on me. Sam Bradshaw. Sam had been heavily into politics during the war and if anyone had enough pull to get this case reopened, it was him. He must not have been satisfied with the accident story I was telling, and evidently he'd thought I'd meant to kill him. Not that it makes any sense. If I were trying to kill him, why had I let myself look like an idiot running around the neighborhood screaming like it was… well, on fire?

Then I remembered that he had never really taken much of a liking to me, and I realized that though our status during the war wasn't public knowledge, this guy had been high enough up to know who we were.

I fought the urge to growl at a man who wasn't even here.

I realized I must have missed some of the conversation because Wufei was taking me by the elbow with my cuff keys in hand and Jerry with the broken wrist was protesting weakly with, "But he assaulted me!"

I threw back a, "Sorry about that, Jerry!" and he just stared. I don't think they expected me to be paying attention to their badges.

Once we were at Wufei's shiny black Cadillac, he sighed. "I'll remove the cuffs for now, but you have to put them back on before we go into Preventor's HQ."

I grunted and rubbed my sore wrists once he had the damn things off.

I climbed in the front seat and buckled in silence. Wufei sighed again and it kind of made me want to bolt from the car.

Instead, I matched his sigh and asked wearily, "Does Heero know?"

Wufei snorted. "Of course. He's my partner, after all."

"Why isn't he here? Too pissed off to look at me?" I slumped down further into the seat, my eyes resolutely glued to the moving pavement outside the car.

"I… convinced him to stay behind," he replied cryptically, and since I'd just sighed a few seconds ago, I held it back.

"And why, exactly, did you do that?" I asked, not wanting to drag it out of him but needing to know at the same time.

"He was being less than professional," he said at length, and I chuckled darkly.

"Bouncing off the walls for his chance to rip me a new one, huh?"

"Actually, no. If he had his way, he would have probably decked the guys who arrested you and ran off with you."

Shock seemed to be the theme of the day, and I did look at Wufei then.

"You can't be serious. He should be flaming pissed."

"I'm sure he is, Duo. But his first instinct is to protect, then rip your head off when he's sure you're safe." I could see the amusement written all over his face, though to anyone else it probably looked like irritation.

I snorted. "Well, that's reassuring."

Wufei raised an eyebrow. "It should be."

I decided I didn't want to have this conversation anymore and commenced staring out the window.

It wasn't long after that when the car rolled to a stop, forcing me to come out of my brooding mood for a minute to confirm that we had in fact arrived. I scowled, but Wufei gave no quarter and he put the damn handcuffs back on me.

He knew me well enough to know I was damn pissed off about being escorted into HQ cuffed like some criminal and he had the grace to lean in a second right before we entered the office to say, "Nice job you did with that officer's wrist. He deserved it. The guy was an idiot."

It surprised a laugh out of me and though it still sucked to have everyone stare at the Agent and his 'charge', I felt a little bit better.

The effect wore off as soon as he left me alone in the room with the caged lion.

Heero looked like he didn't know whether to hug me, scream at me or knock some damn sense into me. In the end, he went with pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head in pure 'what am I going to do with you' fashion. "What the hell were you thinking, Duo? Why didn't you tell me?"

I'd been about to pop off with something flippant like 'I wasn't, if you remember correctly', but then I saw something flash in Heero's eyes that looked suspiciously like pain. I didn't think 'It never came up' was a very good answer with all of the emphasis he'd been putting on our 'talks'. I bit back the reply and rerouted the thought headed for my mouth.

"I'm sorry, Heero. I just didn't want to relive it, you know?" I sounded as guilty as I felt, but apparently, that wasn't the right response, either. I doubt anything I would have said would have been the right thing, but maybe I should have thought a little harder, because that just seemed to pain him more.

I told you we talk constantly, due to Heero's insistence. It's true, he constantly talked about problems and issues we'd had before and after the break-up. We just didn't talk about what happened _during_ the damned thing. It wasn't a comfortable subject for either of us, and it was one of the few that even Heero avoided.

I hung my head in shame and he almost reached out for me when the door opened and Wufei reentered with Une. She had a calculated look in her eye as she looked me over before she turned to Wufei and said, "Get him out of those handcuffs."

I sighed in hopeful relief. Maybe I'd get out of this yet.

"Don't get too excited just yet, Maxwell. The cuffs go right back on if we can't come to an agreement."

Or not. I grimaced.

I sunk into the chair nearest to me and Wufei did the same, albeit with a bit more poise. Heero just stood next to my chair stiffly. This day just got better and better. "What kind of agreement?" I asked, honestly not wanting to know. Une may be a different woman now, but she was still damn scary when she set her sights on something.

Instead of answering my question, she took a different tact. "You are charged with attempted assassination of a former ESUN politician who had a very influential hand in the war. The sentence for such a conviction is a hefty one."

Heero stilled even more if it was possible, and his grip on the chair bent the metal. Wufei just stared ahead sullenly. I, on the other hand, was not just going to sit there quietly. "You can't possibly believe I was trying to kill the man! I ran around screaming 'fire' at the top of my damn lungs! I'd even personally removed some of the people from their houses! This can't possibly hold up in court!" I was swinging my hands around wildly, and with everyone else still as stone, I'm sure it would have been quite an amusing scene had someone had enough guts to try and watch.

"Unfortunately, it can," she said with a frown. "Once the investigation came back with arson, it seems people were less than sympathetic towards you."

I thought Heero was going to burst at the seams. "Bullshit!" He barked then, and I jumped. "He bought those people!"

Huh. Maybe my fantasy of them having much better stuff from the insurance money didn't hit the mark of reality.

Une sat back, and I recognized it as her way of starting the negotiation. "That may be, Heero, but it doesn't change the fact that the outcome of a trial, if it were to come to that, would be grim."

It was Wufei who spoke up this time. "If it were to come to that?"

I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all of this and I wished she'd stop this damn game of cat and mouse and just spit it out already. "What do you want from me?"

"I can keep this from ever going to trial if you'll agree to a trade." She had a glint in her eye that I was all too sure meant bad things for me. Very bad things.

Heero spoke up again, and I was really trying damned hard not to keep being surprised by the protective growl in his words. "What kind of deal? I won't have him doing anything…"

I have no idea what he'd not have me doing because Une held up her hand, and I guess Heero's sense of her command outranked whatever he had to say and he shut up. "I need to borrow your skills."

I glared suspiciously at her, not liking at all where this seemed to be heading. "Which skills, exactly?" I asked skeptically.

She allowed herself a small grin then. "Infiltration."

I felt rather than saw Heero go wide-eyed and he worked his jaw a little before gritting out a firm, "No."

Une looked at him with faint amusement in her face before tossing out airily, "What, you'd rather see him locked up for the next twenty years or so?"

He went back to grinding his teeth, leaving me to deal with it. I tried to think of a way out of it, I really did. But a street rat knows how to tell when he's been backed into a corner, and when her gaze leveled at me in askance, I rather dejectedly asked, "How long?"

Wufei looked at me with an unreadable expression and Heero was about to protest again and I let my shoulder brush the hand that was mutilating the back of the chair I sat in to let him know it was okay. Une was completely nonplussed with it all and just said, "A couple of weeks."

A couple of weeks for the rest of my life… it seemed like a fair trade, right? Then why did it feel more like a death sentence than a rescue?

After the war ended, I'd been rather adamant about not taking the 'protect and serve' route. I felt I'd done more than my fair share of pushing peace along and I felt no obligation to keep doing it. There were plenty of other people qualified to do it in my place. I had wanted a chance at a normal life; you know, a life that didn't involve trying to keep myself from getting my ass killed by killing the other party first? I'd been succeeding quite nicely, thank you very much, and the whole idea of putting myself back in the line of fire was definitely not at the top of my to do list.

I shook my head ruefully. I guess I was just going to have to make room for it, now wasn't I?

Une wasted no time going into mission specs, and it didn't take me long to figure out I was going on the very same mission that had me so exasperated with Heero the night before.

I wasn't really sure how I felt about that. Relieved that I'd be working with two of the seriously few people in the entire Earth Sphere I trusted to watch my back? Pissed to high hell that I was being forced into this with some good old fashioned black mail? Irony that I was going along for the ride on a mission that I hadn't even wanted Heero to go on? Scared as shit that maybe I didn't have it in me to be the 'hero' anymore and would somehow botch the mission and get us all killed in the process?

I'm sure the myriad of emotions playing over my face was amusing as all hell to Une, the not-so-innocent bystander. By the time we'd left her office, I felt tired and worn and just wanted to sleep the rest of the day away.

That's when I remembered Mac and I did curse aloud that time.

Heero turned to look at me sharply, and I just muttered, "Forgot to call my boss during all the excitement."

He didn't say anything in return. In fact, he hadn't said anything at all since he'd told Une quite resolutely that he was taking the rest of the day off. After all the talking, it was a little unnerving to find him so silent.

I imagined this went a little far past what 'be careful what you wish for' was meant to cover.

Then I was back to thinking about Mac and what I was going to say to him. 'Hey Mac? How's it hanging? So… I burned down an entire neighborhood a few months back and they seem to have mistaken me for an assassin. I have some connections, though, and I succumbed to some black mail and traded life in prison for a top secret mission with the Preventors, so I'll be out for the next couple of weeks. I hope you don't mind.'

Something told me that wouldn't go over all that well.

I decided to give it a try anyway and just let my mouth run, hopefully coming up with something good and reached for my cell phone.

That's when I realized that I was still wearing nothing but some rubber ducky pajamas and I quite suddenly felt a little underdressed. It's funny how despair and adrenaline can make you forget things.

I turned to Heero and grinned sheepishly. "Can I use your cell? I seem to have left mine in my other pajamas."

Heero didn't even try to laugh at my feeble joke and wordlessly handed me his phone. Somewhere along the way Wufei had tactfully made his exit, and as we made our way to Heero's car, I dug a hand through my already messy hair. It was going to be a long… day just doesn't seem right. Week? Month? Eternity? Take your pick.

I put aside Heero's sullen attitude and dialed Mac's number from memory.

"Mac's Mechanics, where the labor is next to free! How can I help you?"

I could hear the cheer in his voice and I groaned inwardly. I really hated having to spoil his good mood.

"Hey Mac, it's Duo," I started, my voice contrite.

"Duo? I don't recognize the number…" I could hear the frown in his voice. "Where the hell are you? I really needed you this morning. We had a particularly bitchy truck come our way."

I ducked my head even though he couldn't see me. I don't deal well with disappointment. "I ran into a little bit of trouble, Mac."

Concern found its way into his tone, and I felt like such an ass for making this mess in the first place. "Are you alright, Duo? Do you need some help?"

It was meant to be a comforting gesture, but it only served to make me feel worse. Mac really would do anything in his power to help me out. I told you I kind of thought of him like a father, and it has a good deal to do with the fact that he sort of treats me like a son. "No, I have things handled. I'm going to have to clean up my mess though, so I'm going to be out for a couple of weeks."

He swore and the guilt roared to new levels. "What happened?"

I hesitated just a little too long, and he caught it before I could come up with a cover story. "If you can't tell me you can't tell me. I know there are some things that you have on your plate that I just can't do anything about." He was one of the few people outside of those who had been there with me that knew who I had been during the war. At the time, it had felt like a very son-like thing to do. Now it kind of felt like being kicked in the gut. The fact that he was so understanding when I knew how much it would hurt the business just made it that much harder to deal with.

"I'm sorry, Mac."

"Don't worry about it, kid." I could tell by his voice that the boys at the shop were going to have a very bad day indeed. I was completely sure I'd get it from them when I got back. If I got back.

I turned away from _that _thought just in time to hear Mac trying to make light of it. "In the couple of years you've worked here, you've never really taken a vacation. I guess this is as good a time as any."

It was not as good a time as any, as I knew as well as he did that it was nearing the holidays and that this was one of our prime seasons both for autos as well as ships. Spacers feel a lot safer with their more delicate ship repairs being in the hands of someone they consider to be one of their own, and though I'd been a Ground-Bounder for the last few years, I was known well enough through the grapevine for people to know I was a damn good pilot and had spent a great deal of time being as close to a Spacer as it gets. Word travels among Spacers like wild-fire. They're a much closer knit group than Ground-Bounders, and we got a great deal of business based on my skills. It was going to hurt Macs Mechanics damned bad.

I didn't really know what to say though, and I eventually just went with a, "Thanks, Mac. I owe you one."

"Damn right you do," he growled, then added a little softer, "You take care of yourself, you hear?"

I grunted my acquiescence and hung up.

I handed Heero his cell phone back and we proceeded back to my apartment in more strained silence.

Goody. Just what I wanted.

He waited until we were safely behind the closed door of my apartment to start in after plenty of leveled glares at the still curious neighbors. "You don't have to do this."

I snorted. "In case you didn't notice, the alternative isn't really much more pleasant."

His frown deepened. "I could talk to Une. _Make _her see things my way."

I held my hands up at my lover. "There will be no making anyone see anything, Heero. I got myself into this mess and I'll damn well get myself out."

He pressed his lips together in a thin line and I could tell he was biting back a response. I groaned inwardly and went to the kitchen to find a distraction. I managed to busy myself with making tea, and yes, I'd finally started to like the damn stuff. For lack of anything else to do, Heero sat moodily on my couch.

He didn't stay silent for long, and when he opened his mouth, I wished he had. "You're three years out, Duo." He'd meant it to come across as concern, but it hung in the air like a blatant accusation that I wasn't up for it. That I couldn't do it anymore. That I lacked the skills I had used my entire life through.

I couldn't help it. I bristled. Tea forgotten, my own personal doubts forgotten, and fuck it all, neighbors forgotten too, I took my stance to square off with him. "Don't you fucking dare sit there and imply I am inadequate. Just because I don't throw myself into the line of fire for _fun _does not mean that I am incapable of matching you and Wufei every god damned step of the way."

I had half a mind to feel badly now that I'd soothed my pride a bit, but the guy just doesn't know how to quit while he's ahead. Or while he's behind and sinking fast, for that matter.

Before he'd even started to speak, I'd set my jaw and narrowed my eyes. Ready for round two, Yuy.

"When was the last time you were in a life or death situation? When was the last time you had to make a split second decision that could affect the lives of your comrades and innocent bystanders? Hell, Duo, when was the last time you crawled noiselessly through a damned air vent to listen in on a conversation taking place between heavily armed men ready and raring to shoot the first thing that made a damned sound?" He was nearly hysterical at this point, but then his voice turned cold as ice, and suddenly, I thought I knew what this was all about. "Last I checked, mechanics didn't practice these things in their spare time."

I tried my best to glare him to death, tossing out a low blow of my own. "How do you know what I do in my spare time, Yuy?"

I saw how hard it hit him. I saw the confusion, the fear, and I damn well saw the pain that flashed in those blue eyes, but I was past caring now. He'd hit me where it hurt and he'd hit damned hard. In for a penny, in for a pound.

My grin had a feral glint to it, and I stepped closer slowly, bringing my voice low and unrelenting. "Where are you on those first three precious days of the week, hmm Heero? Where are you when I get home from work – if I actually come home from work at all? Just how much do you really know about me anymore, Heero?" The fear in him escalated, now dashed with a mixture of shock, and I licked my lips a little as if it were palatable. As if it was nothing more than fuel for the fire. "For all the talking you seem to be doing nowadays, 01," he gasped softly as I reverted to wartimes, and I know he knew that he was seeing every bit of the Shinigami from back then, "You don't seem to get a damned thing accomplished." I chuckled darkly. "And _I'm _the incompetent one."

I just want to make one thing clear. I am not proud of the person I used to be in the war. But it was who I had to be, and anyone who has been on the front lines knows that the state of mind is completely different. Heero knew this as well as I did, and the only way I could show him that I still had it in me, show myself, was to become that again. It is not pretty. It never was and it never will be. But it was necessary, and as I slipped fully into that mode for the first time in three years, there was just no convincing me that this was Heero, my lover that I was stalking like prey and that there was a point when enough was enough. He was the one who had started this, and if he didn't understand, that was just too damn bad.

He was shaken. Maybe irreparably so. I didn't fucking care. I wanted him to feel it, really _feel _it. I wanted him to know without any damn doubt in his mind that I was every damned bit as capable as I was three years ago and that three years of off-time doesn't change the instincts that have been bludgeoned into my soul from my very first memory on.

Then he squared his jaw and I knew Shinigami had coaxed him back to that dark place as well. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice said that this could get real bad, real fast. I told it to shut up and readied myself for the verbal attack that I was sure would come.

It didn't. He stood stiffly and his eyes were the steel I had remembered from so long ago. He walked very deliberately to the front door and said, "See you on the battlefield, 02."

Then he was gone.

I very promptly deflated, though I could still feel the adrenaline pumping through me. The bluntness of such a mindset leaves once there is no feasible threat, but the heart takes its time returning to a normal pace. I just stood there for a few minutes, staring at the place he'd been last, and once my mind had a chance to catch up with everything that had just happened, the crashing waves of guilt and frustration threatened to bowl me over.

When I thought I could move properly again, I made my way to the couch and collapsed on it. The lack of sleep, getting arrested and blackmailed, disappointing Mac and the dizzying rush of pulling Shinigami out of his dark corner was just a little too much to handle. And then there was Heero.

Well, shit. When I make messes, I certainly don't skimp.

I wanted nothing more than to sleep right then and there without even bothering to lie down, but do you think what I wanted was in the cards? Of course not. If you thought it was, you haven't been paying attention.

Sitting there just made my mind wander, and that was the last thing I needed, so I got up to busy myself with making something to eat. I wasn't hungry but it was something to do and I knew I'd just end up feeling even more like shit if I didn't get something into my system.

I was trying real hard not to think about how much Shinigami had scared me as much as he scared Heero.


	2. Capabilities

Title: Capabilities  
Author: hostilecrayon  
Paring: 1=2  
Rating: R (Language)  
Warnings: Angst, Dark Humor, vague implied lemon  
Word Count: 5990  
Disclaimer: Still poor. Gundam Wing is owned by Hajime Yatate and Yoshiyuki Tomino.  
Notes: This is the second installment in the sequel to the Growing Up Mini-Series – Still Growing: The Not-So-Mini-Series. *Glares at the plot bunny* You do not have to read the first in the series to understand what's going on, but it helps. This is dedicated to Merith, since she was the one who pushed me so hard for a sequel to what was supposed to be just a little 500 word one-shot. Also, for Sunhawk, whose Ion Arc continues to inspire me even after all these years. The Spacer/Ground-Bounder terms were borrowed from her fic. I'm not sure if they are her terms or not, as I've seen them in other fics as well, but since Ion uses these terms quite a lot, I give the credit to Sunhawk. Thanks to aki_midori for all her beta work and soul melting praise! Poke her with a stick and demand she write some GW fics! Her writing is amazing.

**Capabilities**

I didn't hear from Heero at all before the mission, and I was too far gone between my injured pride and my guilt that I just didn't have it in me to make the first contact. Why the hell did he have to push the issue?

At least I managed to get some sleep, even if it was only a few broken hours. I don't think I would have been able to think straight otherwise. I wasn't really sure I was going to as it was.

I met them at the dock at 0600 hours exactly and had to shake my head when I realized I was already slipping back into military mode. Some habits die hard. Heero's face was completely unreadable for the first time since the war, and Wufei looked fairly uncomfortable. I wondered if they had ridden together and I grinned outright when I imagined what_ that_ must have been like. It served to make Wufei even more uncomfortable, and since no one else seemed to be moving, I started heading towards our ship, tossing an amused comment over my shoulder about readiness and their lack of it. They followed me in silence, Wufei's a squeamish sort and Heero's as stony as it had ever been. I grinned more.

I should have cut them both some slack. There was this rattled, frayed feeling bouncing off of everything it came in contact with, but the mixture of knowing I was walking into a kill or be killed situation and the memory of yesterday didn't really leave me left with much courtesy.

I jumped into the captain's seat with no protests from my comrades. Again with the war terms. We were all excellent flyers, but I was the best, and in my current mood, I was more than willing to be fairly cocky about it. I was faintly surprised when it was Wufei who eventually slid into the co-pilots' seat and not Heero, but I let it slide right off me. Later I could think about just how much that hurt. I didn't have time for that at the moment. Instead, I just said, "No crew, eh? That means I can have a little fun. Let's see what this baby can do."

I could see the chiding remark playing at Wufei's lips, but he was still completely bewildered by his comrades' bizarre change in behavior and couldn't seem to voice it. I leered at him and realized that I probably looked pretty damn insane. I don't think most of their missions required this type of war face and Wufei had become pretty damned unaccustomed to seeing mine. It only served to amuse me more.

My hands flew over the panels as if I hadn't taken a three year vacation and fired up the engine. I imagined her preening – this particular ship was a girl – and listened to her satisfied purr. "Alright girl, ready to show them what we're made of?"

Maybe it led further claim to me being insane, but Wufei didn't seem startled by my talking to a ship anymore than he did to anything else I'd done and I mentally shrugged. I was willing to bet we had all talked to our Gundams, so maybe he understood this one little thing. I couldn't see Heero as he was strapped in behind me, and for a moment I wished I could see the look on his face as I cued everything up like I did this sort of thing every day. Then again, if the rest of this morning was any testament, he probably had that non-look pasted artfully across his face. I idly wondered if Wufei had thought we were body snatched by aliens.

Then the control panel flashed the approval to launch code and there wasn't any more time left to muse. "Hold on to your skirts," I fairly yelled, "It's going to be a wild ride."

I saw Wufei clutch at the armrests despite himself and then I tuned everything else out as I hit the thrusters and aimed her towards the ramp that would send us in the upward motion needed to bust into space with all the pizzazz I could manage. "Come on, baby, let's show 'em what we're made of."

I punched codes across the board with practiced ease and the jets roared. Adrenaline rushed through me as I realized just how much power this ship had and I went about putting it to good use.

As I held on tight, steadying the controls and guiding her up into space, I queried aloud, "She needs a name. Sector 4-42 just doesn't suit her." I chuckled, not really expecting an answer. As the ship shuttered through the atmosphere and into the thinning and eventual vacuum of space, I said at length, "I think I'll call her Geri."

I'd known a Spacer named Geri once. She was a sweet little thing with short cropped black hair and a damned mean temper when it came down to it. I remembered her cocky grin and feral glint to her green eyes and decided it was perfect. She'd died in a none too pleasant way and it felt good to immortalize her in a ship. She would have gotten a real kick out of it, even if the three people in the cabin were the only ones who'd ever know about it. She'd had a twisted sense of humor that way, and it only made me all the more fond of the powerful little ship I was piloting.

We dropped into zero-g and I thought Wufei was going to strangle himself trying to get out of the seat buckles so fast. It was obvious that we'd freaked him out a bit and I let him go without comment. Heero had unbuckled himself as well, but unlike Wufei he hadn't rushed and didn't look like he was going anywhere soon. He looked odd drifting just above the seat he'd occupied during take-off with that sullen look on his face.

Then I realized it. Now that we were in space, we had more than twenty-four hours until we made our destination. The ship was on auto-pilot, and though I was very tempted to use some flashy flying maneuvers to speed up the process, I was born a Spacer and I wasn't stupid enough to use precious fuel just to ease a tense situation.

'_A tense situation that you created' _the little voice in my head whispered, and I ignored it.

So here was the nature of the beast. I was stuck in a small ship with one man who was willing to flee the room to get away from me and another who looked like he could spend the remainder of the trip like a stone statue.

I repressed a sigh and decided to start with the former. The latter held complications that I just didn't think I could handle right then.

Leaving the pilot's deck put me a little more at ease, and I could feel the brashness of Shinigami slipping away leaving a very tired and worn Duo Maxwell.

I found him in the galley toying with a bulb of tea. I had a brief vision of Wufei calling ahead and making sure that the fridge was stocked with the stuff and I bit back the urge to laugh. I think I'd worried Wufei enough for one day.

It didn't really leave me with any room for conversation though, and I fished out a bulb of soda and queued the low-gravity setting before I turned to Wufei. "Umm…" How articulate I was. "Mind some company?"

Wufei shrugged jerkily and I wondered just how bad Heero and I had rattled him. I was trying to figure out just how to take up the proverbial ball of conversation when, to my surprise, it was Wufei who threw the ball first. "That was a very impressive liftoff, Maxwell. If I didn't know better, I'd think you did it on a regular basis."

I flushed a little and ducked my head. "It's like riding a bike, I guess."

The room fell silent again until I decided to try to pick the idle ball up again. "Sorry if I've seemed… out of sorts. This just brings back a lot of war memories."

He snorted. Always a good sign with Wufei. "Out of sorts is a serious understatement." But there was something in his face that told me he understood, and the next stretch of silence was more amiable, both of us nursing our bulbs.

When he picked up the ball again, I wished I had something sharp to pop the damn thing. "What happened between you two? I understand you being… 'out of sorts' after all this time, but Heero…" He cut off, and I think I caught the drift he was trying to blow my way. He didn't get like this anymore.

If I could have ran away right then, I think I would have, but your options are kind of limited on a ship in the middle of the stars, and I wasn't feeling quite so bad that I was ready to expel myself out into space just yet, so I exhaled slowly and floundered for where to begin, finally deciding to just cannonball my way into the shark infested waters. "Heero and I had a bit of a falling out."

"A bit?" He queried, and this time when I flushed, it went up into the roots of my hair.

"He didn't seem to think I was up for it. Said I didn't have it in me anymore." I shrugged, trying not to let anything more than I had to show through. "I showed him I was."

Wufei raised an eyebrow. "Showed him?"

You know, I really hate how he can do that. All he has to do is parrot my words back at me and I feel like I've been sucker punched.

"I gave him a little taste of what you've been seeing all morning. Only with all of it very pointedly directed at him." I knew was getting defensive again, but I couldn't help it. He pushed me. He should have known better.

Wufei was the one who did the sighing then, and he looked at me very seriously. "You realize we cannot do the mission with you two acting like you're the enemies, right?"

I looked away. Wufei always did have some sort of strange power to make you feel sorry for something you thought was right. "I know. Just… I have to give him some time. Hell, _I_ need some time."

He frowned, an almost imperceptible thing, but he gave me a tight nod and went back to his bulb of tea like nothing had ever happened. I will never understand how he can do that.

I stretched the time out until lunch with little more to do than stare at my hands. Wufei was completely silent and when I deemed it a decent time to start making food, I almost cried with relief.

I made something simple, not trusting myself to try for anything complex, and finally the hour of doom was at hand. I set the plate of sandwiches on the table and did my best to stride to the cockpit. It came out more as a stilted march, but it would have to do. I blinked in surprise to find out he wasn't there. I girdled the proverbial loins once again and started looking. It's not like he had very many places to go. I thought about my earlier thought about launching out into hard vacuum and only managed to calm myself when I realized that there was at least one alarm that would have warned me of the depressurization cycle.

I found him in the room with the twin bed, and I tried for all I was worth to glare at him. It was more of a pathetic little pout, but he was ignoring me anyway, staring up at the starkly grey ceiling. "Heero," I said gently, and I saw him start to stir, but then his muscles turned all hard angles and I could see he was forcing himself not to respond.

"Heero," I called again as if I were completely unaffected. "I made sandwiches."

A twitch in his right eye.

I sighed very purposefully and strode up to him as if he had merely fallen asleep on the couch. "You know you can't sleep in here. I am not sharing a bed with Wufei when my lover also happens to be on the ship with me."

His frown deepened. If this kept up much longer, I was going to bash my head against the wall.

I gently touched his elbow and he pulled it back. More sighing. I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately.

I could feel myself starting to get seriously irritated, and I knew where that was going to lead, so, catching him completely off-guard, I lifted him _and _that damned duffle bag of his and carried his ass down the corridor.

Thank god for the low gravity, otherwise I might have seriously hurt myself trying.

I thought he might try to fight me, and though he squirmed a bit, he didn't do anything that he thought might cause me to hurt myself. It's always a good thing to know you aren't completely hated.

I dumped him unceremoniously on the double bed in the other cabin and his eyebrows knit together. It was such a small motion, but for some reason, in the face of the last two days, it was so fucking adorable that I laughed outright. It only made him do it more, which served to make the laughing worse.

Apparently, laughing was too much to keep silent for, and he asked flatly, "Mind letting me in on the joke?"

You'd think this would upset me, but it just fit into the picture in my head so well that I just grinned so hard I thought my head would crack in half. "Why Heero," I said with no little amusement in my voice, "You're throwing a tantrum!"

And then I was peeling with laughter again.

"I am not…" He started, and to this day I don't know if it was the constant uproarious laughter coming from me or if it was the petulant tone of his voice that did it, but he suddenly found a smile and said softly, "I guess I am."

"Damn right you are!" I gasped between chuckles.

And things were better. Not perfect, and definitely not beyond the point of talking. I knew Heero better than that; we'd have a nice long talk about this later. But for now, he was willing to let my laughter lead him into the good mood and he grabbed my hand and tugged, imploring, "I could go for one of those sandwiches."

When we made our appearance in the galley, Wufei had this smug little smirk on his face. The bastard. Even so, I found myself matching it as I grabbed a sandwich and took a seat, patting the chair next to me for Heero. He took it with a smile of his own and dug in.

After lunch I did a post-launch check of the ship with Heero dogging my every step. I checked trajectories and alarms and seals all with his sharp eyes watching. I think he was trying to evaluate me, and it reminded me of his thinking I wasn't up for it. I was busy telling myself it wasn't worth it when he looked at me with something akin to pride in his eyes.

"I'm sorry I ever doubted you. Your piloting skills are still flawless."

I think I melted. I swooned and I don't think that's the reaction he expected because his eyes went a little wide and he pulled me in for a tight hug.

There's something that you have to understand. I've never seen Heero be proud of anyone – not even himself. It is not something easily won from him, and even without him saying it, just hearing it in his voice is enough to make my legs go weak. Couple that with fighting with him over the last twenty-four hours and I was more than ready for the much needed contact.

I gave in to the feel of his body against mine and kissed him long and deep. He returned it with a ferocity that made my knees go weak and I had to fight not to rip his clothes off right there in the cockpit. Things had been so tense between us that I craved that release, and he seemed to feel it, too.

He broke the kiss to nearly growl, "Bed. Now."

I barely had time to give my agreement before he was dragging me down the corridors to our room.

Our love-making was passionate and fierce, and it wasn't long before we found release. I slumped over into his waiting arms and wanted nothing more than to just lay there for the rest of the day, buy duty calls and all that, and before I allowed myself to get too comfortable, I pushed myself back up, much to Heero's disappointment.

He looked up at me. "Love?"

I grinned, ignoring the cold that was creeping over the skin that Heero had warmed. "We can't lie around all day. I still have a few things to check and we need to go over the mission parameters before we arrive."

He still looked uncertain, and I kissed him softly. When I pulled away, he ventured, "I thought we could talk."

I knew exactly where this would lead, and I just wasn't ready to go there yet. We'd never get anything done. "Later, love," and I left him frowning in my wake.

I took a hot shower, washing the sweat from my body. I'd needed that release, but to have it immediately followed by him wanting to talk just took some of the elation out of it. Him and his damned talking. It's not that I don't want to be open with Heero. He just makes such a big deal of everything. If he could just let this go for now… so much for wishful thinking.

I sighed, pulling on my clothes. He wasn't going to make this easy on me. I could feel my mood souring, and I headed for the galley in hopes of busing myself with cooking.

Heero was already there, and the soft murmuring I'd heard when I approached stopped abruptly when I entered the room. I looked to Heero in askance, but he just sat there. I tried to catch Wufei's eye, but he had his back to me, effectively taking my goal of distraction away from me by doing the cooking himself.

I seated myself across from Heero in the uncomfortable silence and waited for someone to say… anything. When it was obvious my two partners in crime weren't going to take up the poor battered ball of conversation, I hedged, "Anything I should know?"

Wufei stopped cold and Heero very deliberately did not meet my eyes. "Like?" Heero said softly, and I hadn't really been fishing for anything in particular, but now I had a feeling I should be.

Wufei put a little effort into continuing his cooking and said, "This is almost done. I figure we can talk about the mission while we eat."

I was pretty sure there was something else going on, but Heero still wouldn't meet my eyes, so I waited.

Wufei dished out something that looked like it came out of a Chinese Cuisine cookbook, but I couldn't tell you what it was if my life depended on it. It was sweet and sticky with noodles and a meat I identified as chicken. "Man, Wu, you never told me you were a chef!" He flushed slightly.

"Just something I picked up along the way."

I laughed. "Don't be modest, 'Fei. It's excellent." I emphasized this by taking another bite and exaggerating a moan of pleasure. It wasn't that exaggerated, though. It was damn good, whatever it was.

Heero looked like he was girdling his proverbial loins for something, but when he spoke, he just said, "Are you ready to discuss the mission?"

So I let them tell me about it. They told me about all the information we'd be gathering and how this was top secret and couldn't let on that we were Preventors until we had proof that there was illegal activity going on. They told me how they expected to have trouble with the company, and then they told me the important part. As I listened to the plan for infiltrating the building if it came to that, as it sounded like it would, I started to piece it together. They rallied on, neither of them looking at me as they took turns explaining the different actions that would be taken.

Heero and Wufei would enter the building from different points. Heero and Wufei would find the computer room and the lab. Heero and Wufei would extract the data and attempt not to get caught. Heero and Wufei would exit and meet at the rendezvous point that had been designated.

Heero and Wufei. There wasn't one god damned part in that whole thing that had to do with me outside of gathering information.

I felt the anger pull at me. I tried to hold it back when I bit out, "And what will I be doing while you two do all of the important work? Sit on my thumbs?"

More of that avoiding looking at me shit. I fucking hate that. Heero didn't seem to be able to spit out whatever he had to say, so it was Wufei who answered. "We need you for radio backup, in case something happens."

I stood, slamming my fists against the table. "Bullshit! I'm sure you two have heard of portable transmitters. Why the fuck am I not doing the job that Une sent me to do?"

I should have been ecstatic. I should have thanked the gods that I didn't have to see any action. I should have been relieved that I didn't have to worry about getting my ass shot.

I wasn't.

Heero actually had the balls to say, "It's more reliable to have someone on the outside, Duo."

"That's a god damned lie and you know it! I actually thought that I'd gotten through to you." I shook my head in disbelief, pissed to high hell and back. "I should have known better." I turned on Wufei then. "Does everyone think I'm a fucking invalid when it comes to field work?"

Wufei and Heero shared a significant look before Wufei finally looked me in the eyes and said, "We're just concerned with your safety."

I think he saw in my face that it was the wrong thing to say because he had the decency to blush and look to Heero for help.

Heero opened his mouth, but I cut him off with, "Don't you even fucking start with me, Yuy."

He floundered, a hundred different emotions running across his face and not one damn thing coming out of his mouth.

"I am going to go check the trajectories one last time and send our arrival time confirmation to the colony traffic control office, and when I get back, I damn well better have an equal part in this mission."

I didn't give them a chance to reply and just stalked off to the cockpit.

I was damn well livid. How could they do this to me? How could Heero do this to me? What the fuck had they discussed while I wasn't there? I wondered if Heero had convinced Wufei that I wasn't able to do the job, and that infuriated me so much, I punched the wall.

I shook my stinging hand and surveyed the damage I'd done. The steel wall had a healthy little impression of my knuckles in it, and I didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Concerned with my fucking safety. It told me a lot about what they thought of my skills. Not much, apparently.

I punched in a code that closed and locked the cockpit for sheer perversity. I doubted anyone would come after me anytime soon, especially if they knew what was good for them. I collapsed into the pilot seat, too emotionally exhausted to deal with much. I ran the damn trajectories and sent the message shooting off to Z4, a recent addition to the colonies, and just sat there. I didn't have anything with me to keep my mind occupied, and I ended up just checking and rechecking anything and everything the control panel would allow me to.

I was contemplating just sleeping in the damn chair when I timid knock came on the door.

"Nobody's home," I called out through gritted teeth.

To my surprise, it was Wufei and not Heero who answered from beyond the door. "I was looking for Duo, but I suppose Nobody will have to do."

I chuckled quite despite myself. Wufei must have felt damn guilty to try and joke with me. He was definitely the serious one in the group. Still, I wasn't prepared to deal with Heero just yet, so I bantered back, "He might be moved to speak, depending on who's looking."

"Just me, Duo. Heero's in the galley." I could hear the disquiet in his voice, and I had mercy on him. I had a feeling the mission plan wasn't his idea in the first place. I walked to the door and punched in the code and it slid open, revealing a very chagrined Wufei. He entered hesitantly and took a seat in the co-pilot chair, leaving the pilot's chair for me.

Once I sat, he wasted no time in speaking. "I'm sorry, Duo. Heero is just worried sick about you. He didn't want you on this mission to begin with."

I frowned. "He made that clear from day one. But I made sure to make it pretty damn clear myself that I was doing this and that I won't tolerate being treated like some damn incompetent fool."

"He doesn't think you're incompetent, he just…"

"Thinks I'm too far out to be able to do it?"

Wufei looked like he swallowed something sour, but he nodded slightly.

I raised my voice a little, quite despite myself. "And you agree?"

Wufei's eyes flashed towards the door, checking for Heero. "Yuy can be very persuading," was all he said.

I stood, throwing my hands up in the air. "I am perfectly fucking capable of doing this. He's acting like I'm throwing myself into a colony that's about to explode! This job isn't even a damn eighth of the danger we faced during the war. I can fucking do this, damn it." I said, half trying to convince myself.

Something in Wufei's eyes told me he agreed with me, and it soothed my indignation a little. "He's just worried," he persisted, and I sighed.

"I know he is. But if he keeps thinking I'm going to get myself killed, we're going to fail this mission. He doesn't trust my abilities, and that hurts." I shut up then, realizing what I'd just said.

Trust. That's what this was all about. Heero didn't trust me to watch his back like I trusted him, and it fucking rankled. I was infuriated, but under it all, it hurt that he didn't see me as his equal. If he didn't trust me now, when else didn't he trust me?

I flopped back down into the pilot seat and glanced at Wufei with weary eyes.

"Come to the galley when you're ready. We need to go over the new plan." And then he was gone.

Well, wasn't that just a slap in the face? Wufei trusted me more than my damn lover. What the hell did that say about the state of our relationship?

I waited a good ten minutes before heading to the galley, partly to try to cool my head and partly just to make Heero squirm. When I made my appearance, I was somewhat glad to see Wufei had stuck around. I just didn't feel like dealing with Heero by myself yet.

"What did you come up with?" I started, avoiding the awkwardness that had already settled in the room.

Heero still didn't seem like he was going to speak, but the sharp glare he got from Wufei pushed him to it. "Think you can handle navigating the air vent?"

My eyes bored into his, daring him to look away. "I don't think, Yuy, I know."

He flinched as if slapped and he did look away then. Wufei had pity on him and launched into the new plans, and I was pleased to find myself with an equal role after only the first revision. I wondered just how much of that was thanks to Wufei.

"Much better," I said, just to try to stir up a reaction in Heero, who had sat pretty expressionless through the explanation. It got one, but it was pretty lackluster. He merely flicked his eyes my way, his unease written plain as day in them.

I stood up like all was right with the world and just looked him. "If you don't start trusting me, we're going to find ourselves in a world of trouble." We all knew I wasn't just talking about the mission and he looked down at his hands, opening his mouth to say something, but I didn't let him. "Just think about it, Heero."

Then I pulled my disappearing act again.

I knew I was just making things worse for myself. I also knew that I couldn't avoid Heero forever, and that proved itself an hour later when he found me sitting on my bed, idly sketching Deathscythe as he'd looked just before the end of the second war. Not for the first time, I wished I still had him. If I did, I'd be floating out in space somewhere with my music blaring and my communication line turned resolutely off. Sketching him was a poor substitute.

He entered slowly, each step hesitant until he was just staring at me, a few feet from the bed. "What are you doing?" he ventured into the silence, and I just held up the sketch so he could see it.

"Drawing an old friend," I quipped.

He wavered, looking very unsure of himself. "Can we… can we talk?"

There was that damn question again. I was getting pretty sick of it. I pulled the pad back from his gaze and blocked in the scythe. "What's there to talk about?"

He let frustration win, and it bled into his voice. "You know damn well what we need to talk about. Why are you avoiding this?"

"I'm not avoiding the discussion. It's the fighting that will follow that I'm evading." I kept my voice level, just letting my pencil run across the page, adding the little details to my former mobile suit.

He traipsed around the bed and perched precariously on the edge of it, not really facing me. He was nervous, and it faintly resonated off of him, settling unease throughout the room. "I don't want to fight with you."

"But that's exactly what will happen, isn't it?" I said it almost cheerily, sharpening the edges of my pencil beam saber.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, and his eyes were pained. "Why does it have to be this way?" He drew his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them.

"You don't trust me." I think I even shocked myself with the vehemence that dripped from my words. I'd been going for nonchalance. I missed that mark by a good mile.

His hand pushed my sketch book down and I glared at him. "I do trust you, Duo. I always have."

"Don't lie to yourself, soldier boy. You don't trust me to watch your back, and you've made that glaringly obvious."

"No, it's just… I'm…"

"Worried about me?" He gave me a tight nod. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. I really didn't want to be having this conversation, and I could feel a tension headache coming on. "Heero, if you trusted me to do my job, you wouldn't be worried about me."

He chewed on that for a minute and shocked me when he came back with, "You mean you don't worry when I go on assignment?"

Touché, Heero. "Of course I worry… it's just…" I searched for the words and came up blank.

It was his turn to finish the sentence. "Different?" He quirked an eyebrow at me.

"Yes."

"How? You're allowed to worry and I'm not?"

"Yes. No. …Maybe." I threw my hands up in exasperation. "I worry about you all the time, but I don't keep you from doing your job. I worry something will happen to you, but I trust you enough to know what the hell you're doing. I don't want you putting yourself in danger, but I acknowledge that you're capable of getting yourself out of it." I collapsed back, leaning against the wall. "I just wished you trusted me to know my own capabilities."

His fingers sought mine and we just stayed like that for a long time, me thinking and Heero watching me, not coming closer, but not breaking the small contact we had. After what seemed like an eternity, he said quite simply, "Okay."

I think my eyes just about popped out of my head. It wasn't at all what I expected from him. "What?"

"I'll trust you to know your limits." His gaze turned piercing. "But you have to promise me you'll get the hell out of there if you have any doubts."

I was tempted to tell him I already did, but this was the outcome I had wanted, wasn't it? I'd be damned if I would give him a reason to doubt me now. Instead, I squeezed his hand and said, "I won't let myself get in over my head."

If he saw it for the evasion it was, he didn't let on. He crawled all the way into bed and pulled me down with him to hold me. I let him, his body warming my chilled skin.

"I told you I didn't want to fight with you," he murmured into my hair.

I had to admit, it wasn't how I'd envisioned that conversation going. I guess a little bit of me still hadn't forgotten the old fights. Even after all this time, the ghost of our first attempt still haunted me. I held him close, lost in memories long past.

"I didn't know you could draw." I must have jumped because he chuckled lightly and ran his fingers down my back. "Sorry love, I didn't mean to startle you."

"I dabble in it here and there."

"You're pretty talented."

I didn't really know where he was going with this, so I just mumbled an embarrassed, "Thanks."

More silence, and then, "Do you think you could draw Wing for me?"

I smiled into his shirt. "Feeling nostalgic?"

"Not really. I just don't have anything left of it. That suit was the thing that brought us together, and I guess I'd like to hold on to that." His voice was thick with remembrance.

I thought about that for a minute. I had a hell of a lot of memories of that suit. I felt a little guilty, thinking about the bad times while he thought about the good. Just because things had fallen apart in the end didn't mean everything about our first attempt was bad. Thing had been great in the beginning.

"I think I can do that for you." He smiled into my hair.

"Thank you."

We just laid there tangled together for the rest of the night.


End file.
